We wandered through the supermarket browsing various rolls and breads, looking for something suitable to hold some Italian sausages we were planning to make. But while we love bread, sodium stearoyl lactylate, diammonium phosphate, and other chemicals don’t excite us. We decided to make our own.
After some searching, I decided on basing my rolls on a recipe submitted to RecipeZaar. While the rolls didn’t quite come out in hoagie size or shape (original plan), they had the right texture. I used less yeast, more flour, and a mixer instead of doing all of it by hand. I may come back to this recipe and switch the measurements to weight rather than volume.
You’ll want to try this super easy recipe for these soft and chewy rolls. Not many breads can be made in about 2 hours, start to finish.
Homemade Rolls
~makes 16 rolls
Ingredients
- 0.25 oz. Active Dry Yeast
- 3 cups Warm Water, divided (110-115 degrees)
- 2 tbsp. White Sugar, divided
- 1/4 cup Vegetable Oil (plus extra for bowl)
- 1 tbsp. Table Salt
- 8-9 cups All-Purpose Flour
Instructions
1. In a mixing bowl, bloom yeast in 1/2 cup warm water and 1 tbsp. sugar. Let stand 5 minutes.
2. Add remaining water and sugar; as well as oil, salt, and 4 cups of flour. With paddle attachment, stir until smooth, about two minutes. Switch to kneading attachment, and run on 2 (medium low). Add one cup of flour at a time, for about 4 – 4 1/2 cups, until dough pulls aways from side and is a wet, soft dough. Continue kneading another two minutes.
3. Turn out onto a floured board. Knead until smooth and elastic for about 6-8 minutes and surface stays clean. Place in an oiled bowl, flip once to grease the top. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise 45 minutes.
4. Turn out onto floured surface. Punch down dough. Cut into quarters. Square each of those pieces and cut each into quarters, to produce 16 parts.
5. Take each piece and roll like a meatball. Then tuck dough under and form a very tight ball. Place on surface and form a log, by pushing sides under. Place two inches apart on a baking sheet, sprayed with cooking spray (8 per sheet).
6. With scissors cut a 1/4-inch-deep incission length-wise across the top of each. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise 20 minutes, while pre-heating oven to 400 degrees F.
7. Bake at 400° degrees F for 14-16 minutes until lightly golden and sound hollow when tapped. Remove to wire racks to cool, at least 5 minutes before serving.
Those rolls look perfecto. Please pass lots of butter for these.
So I’ve noticed a number of times that you have a cooling rack. Being a little hesitant to buy anything, I had to check: is it worth it to buy one? What are the advantages??
I’ve only looked at these twice lol…I’m on a diet…however I can’t resist the smell of baking bread, so I’ll be right over ;0)
EMC, cooling racks are helpful for certain baked goods, ones where you are concerned about the bottoms getting soggy from condensation (i.e. bread) Also, baked goods will cool faster on a cooling rack.
We also use our cooling rack in other ways though. Lon uses it to make his maple basted bacon, where the bacon lies on the rack and we put a sheet pan underneath to catch the drippings. The rack goes in the oven. I also use it on hot summer days, underneath my lap top to prevent my lap top from over-heating. Haha
I had the pleasure of eating one (or four) of these suckers; great flavor; relatively light flavor yet . . . had the essence of what a roll should taste like. really nice; nothing beats homemade bread!
Lon, you made lovely little breads! They look so yummie!! Great!
These look fabulous and with my new “scratch ‘n sniff” touch screen computer I can attest they smell great too! (gotta be real careful about what sites I browse) I’ll be trying this in a day or two on my baking stone/tile. By the way, where’s that “Print Recipe” button? Who does your tech support? My this insourcing thing should be reconsider? 🙂
This is, “Maybe this insourcing thing should be reconsidered?” Typing with your nose it not easy…
I have some extra dry active yeast from making brioche and pizza dough. I’ll use the rest making dinner rolls for dinner tonight. Yours look gorgeous. Thanks for sharing.
These are definitely going to be standard fare around our casita. The recipe produced more rolls than I expected or maybe I made them on the small side. Keep ’em comin’.
Marcos – Nice! I’m so glad you liked this recipe. Jess and I totally agree that these need to be in the standard repertoire. They’re so easy, and actually ours lasted 2-3 days easily.